A saved plan captures the exact actions Terraform intends to apply. In CI/CD it becomes the handoff between review and execution—and a sensitive artifact that must be protected.
Resource targeting narrows Terraform to a selected subset plus dependencies. It is valuable for exceptional recovery but can leave the rest of the configuration unapplied.
A normal plan refreshes reality before calculating changes. Refresh-only mode updates Terraform's recorded view without changing infrastructure. The real decision is which side is authoritative.